


my ladybird love

by markiafc



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Declarations Of Love, Depression, Dooku: Jedi Lost (Star Wars), Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Epistolary, Established Relationship, Kissing, Love, M/M, Making Out, Making Up, Open Relationships, Rarepair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27959135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markiafc/pseuds/markiafc
Summary: I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hardto make it love.
Relationships: Dooku/Sifo-Dyas (Star Wars)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> summary from 'self-portrait against red wallpaper' by richard siken, a poem i love love loveee
> 
> there'll be more letters coming as they progressively get older bc i have to figure out sifo-dyas' character voice or die trying uhguhguguhgu

Hello Dooku,

This is not an apology. 

The time of day now is late evening when the small sun is soon to be set. The weather is alright, as per common fare for Coruscant. And my window view sports the sempiternal, ceaseless city currently climbing to the summit of it’s sleeplessness. I see skyscrapers out the corner of my eye and they are edifices of enduring dull duracrete. And there are transparisteel towers too that look like they’ve absorbed the candle-coloured eve-light to glow like gentle sconces. I think I see glints gliding across the tips of the city and it’s strange to see the structures stand in the way of sunlight. They are stubborn and insist on casting shadows. Such is their nature I guess.

And I’m not really talking about the sights, am I? I’m talking about you. Us. And to reiterate, this is not an apology! I deny your efforts to demand one from myself! Oh, Dooku, Dooku, Dooku. You will not wrestle self-reproach out of me by means of wounding my heart with premeditated purpose and intents! I theorise you think your actions as threats (so I would do as you wish in order to ensure your continued affections in the future) and as you meting out merited punishments (so I would never again dare to do something of similar description in fear of your shock and displeasure). And this is all dreadful conduct, really! It’s petty, and hurtful, and frankly it is very unfair of you!

Anyway, now that you’ve learned of my utter lack of repentance and have decided my words must be pointless and you wish to read no further, allow me to put my tender and taken heart on the table and say: I am sorry. I remain deeply, softly fond of your person and I incline to wherever your warmth may lay like a helplessly silly mayflower. I offer you my candor in bouquets to flower you with earnest feeling that I miss you dearly. Dooku. I miss the luxury that is your company, I miss the high expense you price it at and the inevitable moment when you unfailingly deduct it to nothing the moment you learn I am the interested bidder in question. 

And I am so very sorry. 

But _this_. This letter, this correspondence, this attempt to speak to your person since spoken word has been banned from me, is really not an apology. Don’t you dare claim it as such and deceive yourself into thinking I have fallen under your callow pressures. There are no jokes about this, Dooku. I am not writing this to grovel. This is not fodder for your smugness to spring forth. This is not an agreement to the conditions you have one-sidedly and selfishly set for me. This is quite decidedly not an apology. 

_This,_ my friend, is a heart-to-heart.

(Now if I may seed a sapling of satisfaction here so as to encourage your continued reading: Kissing her paled in comparison to kissing you. So there! Did that soothe your pride somewhat?)

(It wasn’t terrible, mind you. I just don’t find the moment particularly memorable. It was alright and it was nice. But kissing you is something that stays with me for hours after. ‘After’ is the goosebumps that come and go and come again. It’s the involuntary shudder that’d strike me and I’d lick my lips and grin and hope, hope the next opportunity I get to taste you would come soon and sooner. Nothing really came after all that with Zang. I enjoyed myself and so did she and that was that. It wasn’t… special.)

(Come to think of it nothing really came out of it either. Hmm. She was soft all over and — quell your jealousy for a minute I beg you, I want to offer you this piece of myself so we can make it ours. Yours to own, even if it’s only partly because I do love you and I want to try — and her hips were soft, her lips were softer, and her chest was the softest part of her, I couldn’t stop touching her for the sensation of sinking bruises into her softness, and the way her body wants to spill from between my fingers. Zang is... the word 'supple' made tactile. It was so easy to coax her to be caged against the wall, sighing sweetly with that smile of hers, but she couldn’t keep up with me. You know Zang. She bends and abides and loves to please. But I kiss too fast and too hard for her. There was not a word of complaint out of her, which I appreciate. But I do wish she had chosen to tell me instead of pushing her reservations aside, no matter how distracted she was and wanted to be.)

(She couldn’t catch her breath I think. I think I was quite close to suffocating her. She couldn’t close her mouth either so Zang ended up drooling all down her chin. I tried to lick her jaw and neck clean in apology. But she didn’t like that, that way I was tickling her while she was already gasping for desperate breaths. She drew away when I tried to hold her hand too so I ended up just loosely holding onto one of her wrists. It was strange. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with a wrist, I can’t exactly thread fingers with it and squeezing it isn’t the same as squeezing a hand in mine. She kept digging her fingernails into the wrong places and scratching down the muscles of my arms, which I don’t hate but I don’t love it either so. So. Yes. It was fun and thrilling but I think neither of us would attempt a second round.)

(‘After’ with Zang involved daydreaming to the time you grabbed me by the collar and yanked me in to devour the air in my lungs. And you clawed at my shoulder blades through cloth and let me lick rather lewdly at your Adam’s apple, and I could feel your voice box rumble right on my tongue. And kissing Zang really does pale in comparison, doesn't it. Force. I bet it pleases you greatly to know how deeply your actions have been impressed into my memory. Go feed your ego some of that, my dear.)

Anyways, in all the raw honesty I can muster, I love you and I love touching those other than you in ways that are expressly not innocent in the least. We should talk about that. And you should stop punishing me for it. And don’t drag Zang into this further please. Do stop yourself from taking your hurt out on her either, she didn’t know about us. I mean I don’t even know if _we_ know about us. We love each other in so many ways, and then on a day I can’t even recall we were in love on top of all that. We never were one for the romance in holobooks, we had just always… been? Does that make any sort of sense to you? There was no special little dance of courtship and such. There was no stunning, ground-breaking confession, only every little thing and every little act we've done for one another. There is no anniversary to celebrate annually, we have no need for things like that. I’ve always been by your side and it has always been impossible to extricate you from mine. What is a relationship if not what we have always, always had?

I’m sorry we never discussed this further. You always knew I ran about powered by infatuations with fellow Initiates, long before we had our first moment of romance. You knew it was a common occurrence for my person and it’s never bothered you before. You yourself have had your fair share of adorations and fancies for individuals other than myself. I assumed we understood those feelings as natural and becoming. On my part, those urges didn’t stall even when we came to be what we are today. I didn’t even think to talk about it with you, I’m sorry for that. I made assumptions and you did too, and life carried on with what felt right, we never stopped to make new distinctions and the like. 

I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I know it wounded you deeply to witness the scene with Zang. Though, I will ease your troubled mind by admitting I’ve never set my hands and mouth on any other incident other than this. I have had some very affectionate words exchanged, however. And my mind would wonder. But you would be glad to know that they always come back to you. There are those I wish to lay with, and then there’s you, whom I also want to lie with nearly all the time. Dooku, Dooku, you’re not the same. You will never be the same. So talk to me. We will find a compromise, I believe it is possible.

This is not an apology, but it is something asking for your forgiveness, and a chance. On my part, I’ve forgiven you for the terrible things you’ve hissed at me and the stabbing accusations you’ve thrown in my face. I know the memory of that plagues you and you refuse to reach out in fear of me finding the damage irreversible. But I assure you that is not the case. So do kindly begin conversing with me. Or write me back. Anything that mends will do.

I'll be waiting.

A creature of longing;

Sifo-Dyas


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Dooku, dear, dear Dooku, 

My day has been dire. Inebriated in the back of the _Truthseeker_ , I am ignominious and ashamed. It feels good to be drunk. It feels even better to craft words intended for you. For your eyes and mind alone. I am dire and disaster but oh, don’t you worry about me. Master Kostana is here. She’s piloting from the cockpit and I am alone and overstepping this line she has laid out for my well-being. But beverages are betrayal. Beverages are a treat. Beverages are an avenue to bilk. I am wind in place of blood and soil in place of flesh, it feels so good to fly and to ground all at once. Did I mention not to worry? Don’t worry. You have so much to concern yourself with, I’m hardly enough to weigh on your mind. I feel fine.

Tipsy now. The words pour out the more I pour in. Force, I’m in love. I hate the way I am. I love you. I don’t know what to do. I love you. I’m afraid, I’m getting used to always being afraid. I love you. I love you. How are you this terrible day? I am most ruined and my fringe sticks to my forehead from sweat. Sweat that runs down my neck and down my sides, trickling between my legs and down the dimples of my back. I suppose I smell rather arousing, I feel and feel and feel. I feel like I need someone. And I think I need you. But I fear. I’m starting to live with fear. And I’m starting to live with love. I love you, Dooku. I love Master Kostana too, I love her. I love her. There are too many things endearing themselves to me and I fear. 

The Force bears down on me like a behemoth of dread and demand and I can’t deliver. I dream in my sleep. I dream in the day. I don’t want to dream anymore. What about _my_ dreams? My desires, my designs. I’m quite drunk now, this is dreadful business, I should’ve expected this. Oh, dear. Oh, Dooku. I want my dreams back. So badly. So badly. I want my ambitions back. I used to be hot blood under my skin and it pumped in my veins, I felt it flying through my being and I breathed blood that took me where I needed to go. Now I bleed that blood and I feel drenched in its splashes and it sprays across my skin, seeping out my pores. And I don’t know how to put it back into my body. I want to put it back. I want to feel it again.

I’m in love. I can’t stand it.

I _can._

I’m in love and I love and I’m loved. That has to mean something. It _does_ mean something. I can stand it. It’s the only thing keeping me standing. I love and I love, I love, I love. My left leg has forgotten how to stop spasming. I suppose I shouldn't be drinking but perhaps I’ve forgotten how to stop that too. Only for the moment, of course. How many hours of induced vertigo does it take to remember what steadiness is? Do you know? If I draw my head further into the clouds and learn this sensation, every day wide awake would feel far less daunting. Then I can assure myself I’m not too far gone because _this_ lack of sense is ‘too far’. My state of mind intimidates me. My own mind and I fear it. But I have been informed this is only the beginning by more than one isolated Master. I fear, I am fear, I bleed it but it dries on my skin and I can’t wash it off. I can’t wash it down either. 

Master Kostana says it’s going to be alright. She says we can take care of ourselves. She’s going to take care of me. She loves me. She shouldn’t. She’ll hide me from the Council. She shouldn’t. She’ll do anything to keep me safe. She shouldn’t, she really, really shouldn’t. But it makes me feel safe. And I love her more for it. It shouldn’t make me feel this way but it does, I think I feel sick. I _am_ sick. I’ve ruined her. Or I’m going to. They’re right. This is only the beginning. I’ve already made a home in duplicity and perfidy, I’m afraid of what comes next.

My leg won’t stop shaking. Treacherous are my limbs, my body betrays me and so does my mind. No one can help me. No. I don’t want anyone to help me. But I don’t want to die. Perhaps I only want to disappear. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’m allowed to want anymore, what is plausible and what is not. The alcohol makes me feel heavy. This is what I want, this is right. Burdensome and taxing and obstructing is my existence, the least I can be is mindful and aware. I know. I love. I think that is all I have.

I know you love me. I know that. I have that too. A heart in my possession that isn’t mine but undoubtedly belongs to me will not stop beating, even in the occasion where my own does. Two hearts. A condition borne from a union of fortune and sacrifice. Dooku. Dooku. Don’t fret for me. Even the Dark wouldn’t want me so there is nothing to fear. I am enough afraid for the both of us.

I can see you. Spine straight and sharpened like a weapon. That tightness extends up to your face and your lips are taut at the edges. I see you pinching your brows and disapproval is in your blood. Disapproval is in your love. Because. You think I deserve better. And you think you are always right. I see you tasting the cheap drink in my mouth and souring as you withdraw. I see you affronted that I’d indulge in something of such poor quality. I see you waiting for me in the hangar and your hands are fists behind your back. I see. I see. I don’t want to see any more. I can’t stop seeing. This is only the beginning. They were right. They were right.

My leg’s stopped. I’m tired. Everything hurts. I’m still sweating. I should stop. Writing. I think I’m going to be okay. This is only the beginning. After all. Right? That means. The worst has yet to come. I’m afraid. But I love you. And I love. I can. I can. I’m sure I can. I will be. I have to. There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere else to go. I can.

And I hurt. But don’t dwell on me. Dooku. I’ll be okay. Because. Because. I still have two hearts. Don’t I?

A man with two hearts glowing in his chest could hardly die. Now. Could he?

Afflicted and afraid, heartsick, I want to go home;

Sifo-Dyas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the jedi lost book makes it pretty clear sifo dyas' depressed and has some form of debilitating medical condition that i personally take to be epilepsy. so that's a personal headcanon i've got, its a thing that seeps into every sifo dyas thing i've ever written though i'm.... not confident @ writing about it so i hesitate to say like 'yes yes i _am_ writing the epilepsy experience' ahbsdahbdad so i wont claim that just yet
> 
> regardless, this is definitely about sifo dyas's foresight and how its starting to develop into a real cause for concern in his life, and that sort of condition means change, and change means grief and fear so. yeah. pain.


	3. Chapter 3

Dear Dooku,

I’m seated in my bed aboard the _Truthseeker_ as I spill the life of this letter on the sheets, watching the puddle grow from where the datapad is balanced on my lap. The time of day is… Well, irrelevant. There is no sky in space to sketch with words and subsequently utilize to segue into the leading topics. I have little to recount to you, there are stationary dots of suns and stars sprinkled across a void, there is no weather to speak of but the journey has been smooth-sailing. My window view is decidedly dull, whatever you picture when you think of a window view for a generic spacecraft: this is it.

I suppose the only things that matter out here are the living. So I could give you me instead, as the scenery. Picture me, my friend, if that would please you. At present, I’m in a pensive and contemplative mood. Master Kostana and I are amidst our return journey after months in that business with traffickers, you know the one. It’s finally been settled with success which is a relief. But I have not emerged… unscathed. It was quite the circumstance. I feel fatigue tugging at my eyelids and I think sleep is playing hide-and-seek with my mind, taunting me from its hiding spot that still renders it unfound. Everything aches too, Dooku. It is the nature of injury and damage, and missteps that cannot be helped. My body hurts all the way down to the bone.

The room is quiet, Master Kostana’s busying herself with the cockpit and gifting me this time alone. She knows me too well. She knows I will be thinking, she needs her time to think as well, and I am thinking. I’m thinking of you. Dooku, Dooku. I’m thinking of you. Bandaged and bruised and broken, I think of your company and I am brightened. And I manage. I think I’m getting better at managing and the act of trying is tedious and tiring but I cannot afford to stop. What was it you wrote? I think I recall something about being a man of labour, a man of strength that is silent and singular, and special. The exigent may attempt to eat endlessly away at me, you said. But I have your presence to double as an antidote and a bastion.

Somewhere under the wounds winding across my skin, I have your love impressed into my body, my being, so I can always remember what it feels like and now I am thinking of your words borne from that feeling. I am thinking, Dooku, how much of myself do you carry with you? How much me do you have in you? And how much you do I have in me? How much of your person have you given up to me in goodwill and adoration? How much? Layers and layers of love can be muscle and flesh and fat of its own. Years and years of yearning can be the bones of a bond and a skeleton to outlast our memory.

I am thinking there is an emotion perched under your tongue and it shares my name. The Sifo-Dyas who swallows all the honeyed and beloved things in your throat, the things that threaten to leave your mouth with your voice as its vehicle, and it pushes them back into your brain and your body, translating them into action as it does so you would _do_ love, you would show love, you would at the very least try to prove and prove your feelings true. Is that what I have given you? The thing that spurs you to try. The thing that spurs you to do and better. The thing that sits in your mouth and reminds you your words have so much power so beware, don’t wield what cannot be unhurt. The quality I have taught you in our time and now you have it impressed into your body, your being. And you can never, never forget. The way I can never forget the marks you have left on mine. This is our love.

(I am thinking that maybe. Just maybe. I am wonderful.)

(I am thinking if that’s the emotion sleeping at the base of my skull and it bears your name. It disperses these thoughts of pragmatic kindness into my mind and dribbles ease and rest and pleasure down my spine. Once in a while, I shiver and feel and I think I feel better than before. The Dooku who loves me, and intrudes to steal a place in my anatomy just so he can convince me the sensation of being loved can very well come from me loving me. This is what you have given me again and again and maybe it has finally stuck, this quality, this feeling of tranquility. This is the effect of our togetherness. It is healing.)

(I think I might be okay. I can learn to change and I am not alone. I am thinking maybe it’s not complacent to think I am capable. I have the right to comfort and encourage my own self. I can use a lifeline you’ve helped me to build but it is still undeniably mine. It is mine and that’s perfectly alright, it will still work just fine. Because I made it.)

(I am thinking of the night you knelt for me. You knelt. Pride and grace and severity, kneeling for me alone, you told me love has ruined you. Said it has ruined the worst parts of you and left the best for last. Oh, Dooku, Dooku. Dooku, my Dooku. I understand now, it is all falling into place. And I’m thinking love has ruined me too. It has left behind the best of me like someone tucking me securely into bed so I can finally sleep well. This is the truth of our togetherness. I want it to never end. I want it to never end.)

I’ll be arriving at the Temple soon to relay the report of our activities to the Council. I trust you would come to meet me, and you can trust that I would look for you. Do be forewarned that I am battered in body and bankrupt in mind, I am in quite a state of disrepair. Hence! I believe some maintenance on your part is in order. I would like to reserve a bath for two and a warm bed in your rooms for my return, please. To help facilitate the process of you comforting me.

I’ll be seeing you then.

Fond smiles and warmed heart, aching body;

Sifo-Dyas


End file.
